The Road That Takes Me Home
by Raina1
Summary: A collection of Naruto short stories that I've written over the years, posted here for the first time. Rated M for a few mature stories.
1. The Road That Takes Me Home

_**Disclaimer: **__Naruto and its characters are the property and copyright of Masashi Kishimoto and Shonen Jump. The author claims no ownership of Naruto or its characters. In other words, this is just a work of fanfiction. I own nothing._

**Title**: The Road That Takes Me Home  
**Theme**: Feb. 15 candles for the dead  
**Fandom**: Naruto  
**Characters**: It would ruin the story if I listed them.  
**Author's Note**: Just something I've always wanted to write. Written for 31_days at the beginning of 2007. Implied SasuSaku.  
***

If there was one thing she had learned in her short career as a kunoichi was it's a very bad thing when you suddenly find yourself all alone.

The problem was the fog. It was as thick as pea soup out here, and down inside of a dried up river bed, screened in by stone on all sides, was just the icing on top of the cake. She could only see about a foot in every direction.

_They were out of my sight for one minute! Not even half a minute!_ Every fiber of her being insisted she had not fallen far behind, that her teammates were probably just a few feet away, and all she had to do was jog those few more feet and she would catch up with them. Well, here she was, six hours later, and she was still jogging. That in her personal book on life was indeed a _very_ bad thing.

She called out the boys' names a few times, her sensei's name, until her throat was hoarse. Finally her tired legs could take no more of the endless wandering around. It was pointless: she was blind out here! This was where knowing any kind of water jutsu would really come in handy, she thought. _I am such an idiot._ In despair, her entire body throbbing from exhaustion, worry and anxiety, she plopped down on a rock. Her elbows dangled over her knees, her pink hair a curtain around her face.

This wasn't fair. She bit her bottom lip to contain the sob threatening to rise in her tightening throat. Why did these things always have to happen to her? It seemed like every move she made, every idea she had, was the wrong choice, it was always her who had to be corrected and lectured. You stupid, empty-headed girl, can't you do anything right? The path was right there all along, we were right in front of you the whole time. What kind of ninja are you, wake up, this isn't a training exercise!

_I could die out here._ The thought entered her mind, sending shivers down her bare arms. _Oh there's a nice self-motivating positive train of thought, way to go, girl!_ She thought sarcastically to herself. _You should be the leader of a squad you're such a great decision-maker! You're earning your mission pay now aren't you?_

…Right.

_Why isn't anyone trying to find me? They know I've never been outside of the village before, heck, up until I graduated my mother never even let me go to the market by myself!_ "I'm here," she murmured out loud to the uncaring shroud of water droplets surrounding her. "I'm here!" she shouted loudly, hearing the bounce and echo of her voice. "Come on you guys. Please find me, I'm really scared! I'll let you make fun of me for this, just please find me already!" Her voice broke at the end of her shout and she hnned, biting her lip. __

Don't cry, ninja aren't supposed to cry. This isn't even that bad a situation. You're just lost, that's all. Only lost. Remember what your grandmother told you, stay put and make yourself conspicuous, and you will be found. 

Yeah, but this place… this was the place no one had ever come out alive from! Too many shinobi had lost their way in this canyon and had never come home. She was no fool, she knew the stories and, though debatable on how each person had disappeared had managed to do it, the fact was they DID disappear. None of them were ever found again. Not even their remains.

Her knees pressed together and her head bowed down. "Please… I don't want to die," she cried softly to herself. "Not out here, not today." _So pathetic, maybe I should die. Be God's way of making room for all those really strong ninja who deserve to live and weeding out those who don't measure up._

In the middle of her sobbing, she sensed a presence. Hopeful, she looked up and waited, setting all of her senses on the tingle. Her fingers twitched for the knife in her belt, just in case. She tensed, ready to move quickly to defend herself.

A small figure emerged from the fog. Startled, she blinked rapidly several times to make sure she wasn't seeing things. It was a little boy. He might have been about nine years old. Palming at her damp, tear streaked cheek she sniffed a few times before rising to her feet to greet him. The closer she drew to him, the more of him she could make out. He was adorable, with dark eyes and scruffy, spiky hair. He was wearing white shorts and a modest soot gray shirt. There was a kind of aura to him, something that made him feel cold to her despite the warmth in his cherubic, angelic face. When he gazed up at her with a small smile, her heart melted.

"Hi," she murmured, once she had ascertained he wasn't a genjutsu. "Where did you come from?"

He didn't speak.

Okay, forget about that one. "Can you help me?"

Nod. Another smile.

Her hands drew together and her heart lifted. "Oh thank you! Please, I've been lost out here for hours. If you could help me, I'd really love you."

He gave her a kind of smirk, the sort that told her she was probably being over dramatic. But even so, she meant it. Anyone who could help her get out of here was the most beautiful person in the world in her eyes. However he didn't seem to take much offense. He inclined with his neck that she follow him and that's exactly what she did. She had no idea how he'd gotten there or any idea of why he was there or even how the heck he knew where he was going. At the moment, she was too relieved to care. The only important thing right now was he was here and that he knew the way out. Any other questions she had could wait until later.

Fifteen minutes later, quite suddenly, they emerged at the edge of a wooded area, up and out of the fog. Recognizing the terrain, she gave a glad cry.

"I can't believe this, you're amazing. Thank you so much!" she gushed, her eyes bright and stinging from the joy flowing from within. "What can I do to repay you?"

The boy merely smiled and held up his hand, looking a little imperious for such a young thing. But the message was clear: no payment was necessary. Then he took two steps back and disappeared into the mist. The young girl gasped and ran forward, "Wait, don't -!" She stopped, lowering her outstretched hand. "Go," she murmured absently. He was gone. It was as if he'd never existed at all.

Then a familiar voice called her name and suddenly she was smiling and running toward the figure emerging from the woods. It was one of her teammates.

"Where were you?" he burst out anxiously. "We looked everywhere! Did you get lost down there?"

"Yeah." Their sensei and other teammate appeared as she replied. "But this little boy appeared and led me out."

"Little boy?" repeated her other teammate, clearly perplexed. "What do you mean?"

"Just some kid, the cutest little thing you ever saw. He left soon after so I never learned his name or even how he'd gotten down there." Pause. "Strange," she murmured, gazing off into the distance distractedly.

Some silence passed. Their sensei interrupted it, thankfully. "Well, the important thing is that you're safe. Let this be a lesson to you: never get separated from your teammates. You were fortunate this time but don't expect someone to find you every time you're foolish enough to get lost."

She nodded. The lecture, as expected. Somehow she couldn't muster the strength to get annoyed by it this time.

It was a week later, during the spring cleaning, when she was going through her grandmother's things with her mother when she discovered a whole box of photo albums. She picked up one picture and froze, clutching the frame so hard it protested against her grip. Nestled in the frame was an old photo that had to have been taken decades ago. In the picture there was a one eyed Jounin, a blue eyed boy who frowned, and a beaming girl with a bright smile with tresses not unlike her own.

What drew her eye, though, was the fourth person in the picture, the boy with the sour expression and dark spiked hair. She had to give herself a mental shake to make sure she wasn't hallucinating. But she knew there was no mistaking it: she was very good with faces so she knew she couldn't be wrong. The face was older, maybe about four years older. She could have sworn this was the same boy who had led her out of the misty canyon a week ago.

"Mama?" she asked standing and going over to where the other woman was rummaging through a cedar chest. "What's this?"

Her equally rosy haired mother straightened up and took the proffered photo. She laughed. "Oh my, I haven't seen this photograph since I was a little girl." Thoughtful silence. "Wow," she murmured, looking from her daughter to the photo again, sounding slightly awed. "You look just like she did – minus the green highlights and hair beads of course. Well, you know what they always say about grandchildren."

She was taken aback. "The girl in the picture is Grandma?"

"Mmm-hmm. That was taken on the first day she became a Genin. New teams always had group pictures taken back then. I remember mine…!" Her mother fluttered her eyelashes, causing her daughter to grunt in exasperation. "Okay, I'll save the nostalgia for another time. That frowning blonde there, that was the Hokage when he was twelve years old. Handsome devil, wasn't he?"

"Heh, he was sure was. And the other boy?" she asked tensely. "What about him?" _It can't be true, it's impossible, I only saw him last week, how can this be?_ Her brain was screaming.

Her mother sighed. "That young man," she began quietly, "was the love of your grandmother's life." A sorrowful smile tugged at her mother's lips. "I remember the one time I asked her about him. It was the only time I ever saw my mother with tears in her eyes. For a woman who hadn't even shed a tear when my father had died, it frightened me." Sigh. "I never asked about him again. I couldn't bear to see her like that."

"Oh." She absorbed her mother's words before daring to ask: "What happened to him?"

Her mother exhaled. "He defected from the village about a year after that photo was taken. Your grandmother and her friend tried for so many years to bring him home again. But from what she told me, the more they chased him, the more he seemed to slip between their fingers. Then one day," her mother closed her eyes, "an ANBU team discovered a body in a dried up river canyon three miles from Konoha…"

Her heart began to pound. "It was…"

Her mother nodded, wiping at her eyes the tissues her daughter had fetched. "My mother later told me he had died of his wounds and on top of that he had also been completely blinded from a previous battle. But somehow he had managed to make it this close before he collapsed. He was only nineteen years old."

"Poor guy," she murmured. "Is his name on the memorial?" She unhooked the back of the frame and slid the photo out. Turned it over and read the names.

"No. The Rokudaime tried to have it put on there but the Council stubbornly refused to allow it because of his missing nin status. He's buried with his family out in the old Uchiha family plot."

The photo was back in its frame and absently placed on a nightstand nearby. The girl got to her feet after a moment of debate. "I'm going out for bit," she announced. "That all right? I'll finish organizing the photo albums when I get back."

Her mother nodded again and returned to rummaging through the chest, though not before taking another tissue out of the box.

His grave was easy to locate. It was one of the newer ones with the most recent date and year of death on it. Standing before the small stone, she read his name aloud, liking the way it sounded in her ears. Kneeling before the marker, she placed a flower on the ground, erected the single candle she'd brought and lit it with a lighter. When she finished, she stepped back a respectable distance, watching the flame dance in the dim light of evening shadows.

There was no question in her mind now. Sure, she had never really given much thought to it but she wasn't one to entirely dismiss anything outright. Her heart told her and she believed what it told her: that this doomed young man, for whatever reason she had yet to fathom, had heard her cry for help. He had come from the beyond to lead her to safety. Why he would do that for her what had never been done for anyone else, she could endlessly debate. But she had a feeling she had a pretty good idea. It brought a smile to her face.

Before leaving, she cast one more glance at the candle flickering in the wind, highlighting the crevices in the etched grave marker. One candle for one soul. She liked to think that its light somehow, somewhere, was helping a young boy find his way back home.


	2. One Conversation

**Title**: One Conversation

**Series**: Naruto

**Character**: Uzumaki Naruto

**Theme**: _September 14. me, myself, I, and the space left for you_

**Disclaimer**: I no own, you no sue.

**Rating**: K

There are some days Naruto looks outside his office in the Hokage tower and lets himself think of all the what-ifs, ands, the things he could have done, did, and can still do. Yes, sometimes his memories make him bitter, even sad, but the one thing he never does is let it show.

_Sasuke, you're not the only one whose an expert at masks._

Once upon a time, he would have given tooth, nail and whatever else he owned on his person, part of him or not, to have his "brother" home again. Now… now…

Now all Naruto wants is just to see him again, if one more time. He just wants to talk to him. He wants to know how he's doing, what he's been up to, what he thinks about anything at all. Maybe have a spar. If he can't stay in Konoha, that's fine, it doesn't have to be in Konoha, they can be anywhere Sasuke wants to be. He just wants to see him.

He never knew wanting one simple little thing like a conversation with someone was so hard to let go of wanting. He never knew that just not knowing the fate of someone you cared about could leave a part of yourself in the past, unable to move on.

It's not that Naruto hasn't tried. He has. He's sent his best shinobi out into the world with one mission: find out where Sasuke is and if he's alive. If there's nothing else to tell, he assures them, it's okay. _I just need to know for my own sake if for no one else's._ He can't move on - he knows this – and that it's pathetic to keep sending out these errand boys for something he hasn't been able to let go.

They don't find him. They never do.

Yes, he's still playing the fool. But it's still like he told his beloved late sensei when he was a tousled haired, ruddy-faced child on the brink of adolescence: he'd rather be a fool for the rest of his life than give up on his friend.

The only person when she catches him in those moments of reminiscence who doesn't chide him for his silent stubborn refusal to let go, is Sakura. Perhaps it's because she too never let go of Sasuke either. In this Naruto finds some solace. Misery loves company after all.

He doesn't ask her what she does about it, though. There are many things Naruto shares with his female teammate, but what she does about her bond with Sasuke is something he will never ask about. He knows all he needs to know about it… it is not his business until she decides to make it so. If she does, he will know.

Ten years have passed now. Three since he became Hokage of Konoha

Today Naruto has taken some time for himself, as he often likes to do, dismissing his guards for the day, since he is going some place that is hardly a risk for a young man who is more than powerful enough to take on an army. He sometimes chuckles when he hears all the villagers talk about him… you'd have thought they were talking about a god from the way they describe him. He knows the praise is hard won from the hate he used to get from them when he was a child… this is why he is hard-pressed to correct those impressions.

_I worked hard to earn it, I might as well enjoy it, _is how he justifies it to himself.

Naruto reaches his destination, a small outcropping overlooking the village, and just stands there, hands in his pockets. He has left his Hokage mantel at home, opting for a long, loose black coat and civilian clothes: orange pants and a white shirt. His hair is a little wilder, and longer, than it used to be but he decides nothing about himself has changed much. It's the one constant he keeps while everything changes around him.

"Naruto."

"Hmm, what?" he turns and sees someone standing at the bottom of the outcropping, looking up at him. He frowns when he realizes he doesn't recognize the hooded man. He narrows his cobalt blue eyes warily. "Is there something I can help you with?" he asks casually.

"I'm… looking for Uzumaki Naruto. Is he still in this village?"

"It depends on who's looking for him."

The man seems to hesitate before approaching. He halts when he sees Naruto's feet slide apart in a hint of a fighting stance. "I'm not your enemy," he speaks softly.

"Huh." Naruto tilts his head to the side. "Prove it."

The man comes closer until they're only a few feet apart. As he approaches, he pulls down his hood, revealing his face. He has a somewhat unkempt mane of short black-blue spikes and black eyes. Time on the road has made what were probably once very aristocratic features a bit harder but it doesn't detract from the fact it's still a very handsome face. He is the same age as Naruto but his eyes are those of someone who has seen much more than their fair share of grief.

Naruto frowns. He's not sure of what he's looking at. He knows this face, it screams familiarity at him, but so many things have changed about the man in front of him, he's doubtful. He's afraid of making a mistake. _I'm sure, I'm so sure_, his heart screams, _but I'm afraid to ask._

The man gives a slight, uncertain smile, as if smiling is not something he's used to doing. "I've heard you've been still trying to find me. I figured I'd save you the trouble this time… dobe."

Naruto's eyes open up wide. For some weird reason he feels sick and scared at the same time. "Sasuke…?"

The man looks away for a moment, kind of shrugging with one shoulder. "I… was passing through, I saw you so… I'm here." He seems terribly embarrassed, still unable to look Naruto in the eye. When the blond man does not reply after a long bout of silence, he exhales slowly, nodding. He moves to go.

"Wait."

Naruto jogs down to where he's standing. His eyes are still wide and he wants to say more but he can't, he can only stare at the other man. He can't believe what's happening, where he is, who's in front of him. Even with all that, though, it doesn't prevent him from grabbing and hugging Sasuke in a bear hug. Too many years have robbed him of his defenses and his pride, so when Naruto steps back, he's palming the corner of one eye.

Sasuke says nothing, does nothing. He gets the sense the Uchiha doesn't know what to do. But he does. He motions they sit together on the outcropping, which after another hesitation, Sasuke does.

For a long time neither of them speaks. Eventually Naruto begins to talk. From the relevant to the inane, he talks about everything, anything. Eventually Sasuke begins to respond, answering first with short one word answers, before he starts to relax enough to speak more. Most of the afternoon passes by lazily, and for several uninterrupted hours, they do nothing but talk.

Not once does Naruto ask why Sasuke is there. He's afraid to break the spell. He's afraid that he has gotten what he has wanted and will soon being losing it again.

When Sasuke finally stands up, Naruto is seized with an inner terror he has not felt since he chased after Sasuke that first time so long ago. Is he going? Is this over?

Sasuke begins to walk down the outcropping, hands in his own pockets, not seeming to be in any kind of hurry. "Where are you going?" Naruto hears himself ask.

"To go see Sakura." Sasuke suddenly looks back up at him face impassive yet tinged with that same uncertainty he's had since he appeared. "Unless you think…" he trails off, waiting for Naruto to give something he never thought Uchiha Sasuke would ever ask for: permission.

Naruto grins and it's the first genuine smile he's been able to crack for a long time. "The hell, of course you can go see her. She'll probably faint otherwise, I ought to warn you, she's got a mean right upper hook."

Sasuke tries one of his small smiles again and almost makes it this time. He starts forward again, pauses, and then looks at Naruto over his shoulder.

Naruto catches up with him, and side by side, the men head back down into the village together.


	3. But She Has To Believe It

**Title**: But She Has to Believe It

**Series**: Naruto

**Pairing**: Sasuke/Sakura

**Theme**: _September 12: the one thing that I still know_

**Disclaimer**: I no own, you no sue.

**Rating**: K

When it comes down to it, no matter how hopeless it seems, how fruitless, how pointless, how utterly insane it is that she, that _they_, will still keep plunging on mindlessly ahead. He's worth it – even when he isn't. He's worth it even if she winds up with a sword through her heart, worth the last sight of his mad red eyes staring emotionlessly into hers.

He's worth everything because Sakura knows what it's like to live without the person that matters most to you deep in your heart. Even if he's never felt about her the way she felt, _still_ feels, about him. Even if he says things that plunge cold daggers into her soul, baring it open like a wound. Even… even if she has to watch the back of his head as he, once again runs from her, as he again, shrinks into the darkness inside his soul and lets himself become tainted by it.

Because she knows something many others don't know about him, something that can only be learned through knowing him, fighting beside him, watching him as he watches her back.

He can see her love. He sees it for what it is when she bares it to him, her emotions raw and naked before him under a moonlit night where everything had changed… where nothing had changed. He won't, can't, accept, return, _reject_ it.

He won't _reject_ it.

He ran from everything that had ever mattered to him, threw his bonds away like they were nothing. But when she offered her love, _when she offered her love_, he thanked her. In a moment where he could have broken free from her pursuit forever, he didn't take his chance.

That is why he is worth it, because even though it is a vague, broken, tiny, sliver, it is _still_ hope. It means, might mean, something is there to salvage. There is something she can bring back because he hadn't seen fit to burn that bridge. Maybe she's wrong, maybe it's false hope, maybe this is nothing. Maybe there was nothing to begin with.

But she has to believe it. She has to.


	4. Straight On Until Morning

**Disclaimer**: _Naruto and its characters are the property and copyright of Masashi Kishimoto and Shonen Jump. The author claims no ownership of Naruto or its characters. In other words, this is just a work of fanfiction. I own nothing._

__**Author's Note: **_Written for livejournal's 31_days._

**Straight On Until Morning**

by Raina1

Sakura wakes up slowly, as she often does. She rubs her eyes with the back of her hand, then her fingers rub deep in corners, getting out the grit. Sighing, she turns over on her side, glancing at the digital clock in the grayish darkness. She closes her eyes again, as if contemplating going back to sleep. Then she opens them again and throws back the coverlet. Her legs swing over the edge of the mattress and the tips of her toes graze the floor before she puts her full weight on her feet. A faint wince of discomfort twitches across her face; a bruise from yesterday's training is giving her a dull and already fading reminder of her imperfections. She's cold, and shivers, pulling on a light pink robe.

Half-blinded by a brain still only half-awake, she stumbles across the hall into the bathroom. She almost steps on the cat. Murmuring, she nudges the animal aside with her leg, chiding him softly. He mrowrs in protect - he's hungry and she's there. A small smile cuts her mouth. She tells him "In a minute" before pushing the rest of the way into the bathroom. A moment later she emerges and he's still there, tail twitching, yellow eyes wide and expectant. To further his demands, his red bowl lies ostentaciously between them . Sakura dutifully leads the stubborn tomcat into the kitchen. She fills his bowl with dry cat food and then gives him two kisses between his triangular ears, scratches his chin as he devours his meal. She loves the animal because he is there, always there, every morning. His love for her remains as long as she feeds him as hers for him remains as long as he's there to let her.

"You're up early."

Sakura finishes with the cat and rises to greet the newcomer. It's her father.

His query is simple. "Mission?"

"No," is her soft response.

"Ah." He says no more and goes into his routine of starting coffee before padding back to the bedroom he shares with his wife. Sakura pilfers a bottle of juice from the fridge and heads into her room to dress before moving out the front door, giving her sleepy mother standing by the sink a token wave in passing as she heads out. She's not close with her parents. They don't know anything about their daughter and she knows most of this is her fault. She's never home so why should they? It's strange to think that she would die for them in an instant and she knows they would do anything for her. Yet if it came down to it, if perchance they were to come between her and anything else she loved, she'd leave them flat for it in an instant. It saddens her when she thinks about it too deeply. But, she tells herself, she _has _to tell herself, that they are her parents and they already understand. _They love me and nothing can change that. _It's how Sakura justifies her long absences and their not knowing her. It's how she has to.

It's on the east wall (naturally), the first place the light touches. It's also the coldest and she is glad she has remembered to wear her mother's old overcoat.

She didn't always do this. Once upon a time, Sakura woke up at decent hours, even when she was training with Tsunade. But ever since she turned sixteen, she's been keeping to odd rituals. All shinobi and kunoichi have their strange rituals. Sakura likes to think hers is healthy. She drinks _orange juice _while she does it.

She smiles at her private joke. Sakura makes a lot of jokes she never shares with anyone. The girl inside her head is tired of them but she's been silent for so long, Sakura's not sure she's even there anymore.

Sakura pretends she likes watching the sunrise alone. It's a lie, of course; she doesn't. She wants to ask Naruto to watch it with her but she never does. She doesn't know why because Naruto would do it. He'd hate waking up so early, he'd whine and complain - oh how he would complain! - he'd probably conk out again the minute he got up here, but he'd do it. Naruto is just that type of person.

But she doesn't. She knows why she doesn't. This isn't what she wants to share with him, not him. It would be cruel to do that to him. You're not supposed to ask someone to do something with you and then wish he was someone else. And Sakura knows she would wish he was someone else.

Sakura tucks her knees together tightly and exhales, her breath a fine mist in the cool morning air. This is the part where she cries but doesn't. She does cry, at night, when she can longer believe she's accomplishing anything by not crying. After all, she's always cried for him, about him. Some part of her thinks he's not worth so many tears, that she's being ridiculous. But she knows, she _knows_, he is. But she _is _being ridiculous, she admits. Sakura isn't arrogant enough to believe she is alone... She's silly enough to think she might be the only one in the world who holds on so hard.

Hold on like this, anyway.

Sometimes she wonders what it would be like to see him, that someone else, differently - or at all. And then she realizes that it's impossible to imagine such a thing. It's like this sunrise, in a way. The sun not coming up in the morning? It's like a bird being told she can't fly even though she has wings, a fish that she can't breathe water even though she has gills.

Sakura has flown without wings and breathed without gills. She's seen the breadth of sky and the darkest waters along the bottoms of the deepest seas. She's felt height and depth but only as someone with a single eye can. She lacks perception. Yes, she wants to share his pain - instead he left her with her own, cold, tiny and shivering. Oh she puts on a smile, that confidence, she's fooled enough by far and in between. The cracks are small and there. She knows Kakashi sees them and will never speak of them. She knows Naruto looks through them - or not at all. Sakura is alone. But, she tells herself, she's alone by choice. She's alone for _him, _that someone else.

He never asked her to wait, he would have preferred she left his memory lying in the shadows, perhaps in the grasses amongst the remnants of her pale pink hair. He would prefer to be described, if at all, in remember whens and past tenses, perhaps colored with a fond wisp of a faint smile. She knows he would rather she forget. If he thinks of her at all. Thought. If she matters to him at all. Mattered.

It hurts, to think of it. To be thought of like that.

Sakura palms away a stray tear, the heat of it carves a wet trail down her smooth cheek. She faintly sniffs and rubs her nose on her kneecaps, pretending it's because of the cold her eyes and nose feel the chilly bite of the air.

Something lands beside her on light feet. Sakura looks.

It's the cat. He's followed her. She frowns. He's never followed her before. "Hey," she murmurs, pulling a hand out from the warmth of her coat, fingers out, palm up. She beckons.

The animal's ears twitch at the sound of the girl's voice. His green eyes fix upon her with typical cattish disinterest, intelligent, fierce, watchful. "Hey, c'mere," she speaks softly. "I'm a lot warmer than the wall, don't you think?" He obliges her, rubbing his face and whiskers against her knuckles. A moment later she is moving, scooping him up in her arms and setting him upon her lap. She strokes his gray fur, scratches his favorite spots and rubs her cheeks against his soft coat. When he looks up at her, she looks down at him.

"I know when you look at me like that, it won't matter what you're thinking," she says, running her fingertips down his back and sides. "I know you'll be sitting right outside my door tomorrow." She closes her eyes. "I can give you what you need because I'm the only one who does. If I didn't, would you still sit outside of my door? What if this was all I gave you? A hug, a scratch between the ears? Would you still leave me dead mice on my windowsill? If Naruto fed you instead of me, would you only stay with him?"

The cat stares at her, his eyes wide, green and unfathomable. "Mrowr," he finally demures, quite loudly.

In spite of herself, Sakura giggles. She doesn't know why but she does anyway. A sliver of gold slices across her cheek and when she feels that faint tingle of warmth, she smiles with her whole body.

The cat purrs.


	5. A Place To Start

**Disclaimer: **_Naruto and its characters are the creative property of Musashi Kishimoto._

_Written as a gift fic for the folks at the SasuSaku Fanclub at NarutoForums._

"**A Place to Start"**

**By Raina1**

In the end, he never came home.

They said he was too far gone, that his madness and grief had pushed him down into an incurable spiral of madness. She never really knew, not for sure, not since she last saw him so many painful months ago. She could understand why someone, anyone, would say that, for those who saw him saw what their eyes told them to believe. A young man laughing as he bled from the eyes, a high-pitched, unbalanced rumble with a shaky undertone suggestive of one who is either about to scream, or sob hysterically, both of which he seemed to do without doing them at all. It was a hard combination of emotions to witness. Even Naruto had wavered in his convictions. His pleas to his friend were edged with tears, cracking his noble, righteous surface, his faithful resolve becoming like so much spider web cracks on a sheet of glass. His friend had gone to the one place no one could follow him. Nothing compared to the mental black hole of insanity. That was how she came to remember Uchiha Sasuke.

It was a year to the day since they'd lost him again. Where he was now was anyone's guess. Rumors circulated about sightings but they were only that: rumors. There was never any truth to them, and as with all rumors, they died out as almost as quickly as they had been borne. Sakura was never one to put much stock in rumors, and after a while she began to ignore them after the first six months. Her heart had taken about as much of a beating as it could take; anymore false hope at this point might wind up killing her. She would rather live with a broken heart than live with false hopes and false dreams. Easier to damn that boy's beautiful face in her dreams than offer a caress that he neither wanted, nor had ever cared for.

She was certain he had forgotten her. The swift way he had tried to kill her, without any hesitation at all, attested to that. If he could willingly try to kill someone that he knew loved him, then he had forgotten her, and all that she had been to him. What she had tried to be. The boy who had thanked her under moonlight had not been found that day. In his place was a grotesque creature that answered to his name and wore his face, but ultimately, was little more than a changeling that had robbed the cradle bare. This bloody eyed stranger who tried to slit her throat was not the man she loved. She wondered if he ever had been.

Even so, while most days she could put him from her mind, there were always those little weak moments she would forget to forget. He lingered here and there, unwanted wisps of memory she consciously found ways of blocking out whenever they tried to intrude on her everyday. Whenever he popped up, she would go running, or spontaneously start cleaning her room, or go off training. A good rousing spar with a former classmate usually did a fantastic job of blasting his image from her mind. Tsunade had no endless shortage of tasks for her, and those she tackled with gusto and much enthusiasm. Then there were the missions that needed going on, people that needed healing, and plenty of work to perform at home. Konoha had many years yet before it would be fully rebuilt and it needed every available helping hand in its efforts. There was plenty for her to do, plenty of people who needed her help – and she had plenty of friends. Life was too short to nurse a broken heart over a broken boy with a broken mind.

Besides it wasn't like she had to worry about having a broken heart again. He'd done taken hers from her and kept it for himself broken useless thing that it now was. It was stupid, but it was true. Sasuke had her heart, he knew he had it, he didn't care that he had it, and he would keep it forever and always that thankless son of a bitch.

_Okay. This definitely isn't helping me concentrate. _

Sakura opened her eyes and let out a harsh sigh, lowering her pink head in defeat. She had come out here in the middle of nowhere to meditate, to clear her mind of all cares and woes, and what was she doing? Filling it up with cares and woes! Smacking the center of her forehead with the heel of her hand, she muttered, "Stupid," before reluctantly pushing to her feet. Brushing off her hands, Sakura took one last look at her surroundings. Satisfied that no one was creeping up on her, she amiably decided to give up today's meditation as a bad job. Next time she would remember to engage in a vigorous training routine and _then_ use a meditation session to cool down. Physical work outs helped as much in clearing out the cobwebs as mental ones did. It would do her well to keep that in mind. It was what Kakashi was always telling her after all.

Shouldering her travel pack, Sakura decided to travel home by foot today instead of taking to the trees as par the norm. It wasn't very far back to Konoha, and it was a lovely warm spring day. The flowers were in full bloom, the sky was pure blue, and the breeze was just perfect. Oh and the sun! She inhaled deeply, relishing in the rich, lusty scent of the wood, and threw back her head to catch the dappled rays filtering through the thick canopy above. She smiled dreamily, and with another quick breath of satisfaction and pleasure, continued her trek home.

The blow hit her in the shoulder so hard she stumbled backward into a tree and partially collapsed against it, shaking the thing right down to the roots. Later she would remember she could not have been able to see it coming, for the attacker had had his chakra concealed, and had used nothing more than a well-aimed _taijitsu_ maneuver that held no more chakra behind it than a simple punch. Still to be taken off guard like _this_, and with such a mundane, run-of-the-mill attack was a serious blow to the pride of the top chunnin med nin of Konoha.

Grasping her bruised and throbbing shoulder, she controlled her hiss of pain, as she looked up to glare at her attacker. Whoever this bastard was, she was going to give him back what he gave her ten times with compound interest!

When she opened her mouth to snarl at him, she felt the words die in her mouth.

_Sasuke_.

Oh shit.

He gave her no more time to comprehend that before he went after her again. This time she was quick enough to catch his fist and twisted his wrist so it wouldn't connect with her face the way it had meant to. Unfortunately he took advantage of this to knee her in the stomach, a blow that would have disabled her if she hadn't moved to block it. It didn't divert the blow, but at least it didn't knock her out. While they struggled, she got a good look at his face, as it was barely inches from her own. There was a cold contained fury in his expression, something deep and burning, teetering on the edge of the black hatred she was used to seeing in him, tempered with something else. When he managed to get past her guards – she was never going to out do him physically, it just simply wasn't possible in a fight like this – his hands clamped around her throat. She clawed at them even as he shoved her down hard on the ground and mounted her, settling her weight on her torso and midsection in such a fashion as to steal her breath away. His Sharingan was blazing, hot, red, black and fiery. His face twisted even further, his jaw tensing from how hard he was clenching his teeth together in rage.

He began to speak then, unprompted. The accusations he blasted her ears with stabbed her emotions to shreds, dragging out everything within so carefully sheltered, tended and hidden, until she herself could do nothing in response but cry. Because they were lies. Because he believed them. Because he was here. Because he was trying to kill her again. Because he was a living corpse trying to throttle another living corpse. Because she still loved him. Because.

Eventually he ran down. Eventually he released her throat to lift her up by the shoulders, forcing them both to sit up. His expression changed then. He was still angry, still insane, but he was no longer accusing. He was demanding. He was ordering. He was shaking her.

Sakura shook her head and just sobbed harder for it. She wasn't listening to him. She was done. She was _done_, and he could kill her right now, because she didn't _care_. Anything to silence this demon living inside of her that was eating her soul; anything to get away from him.

When she wouldn't cooperate with his demands, he grasped both sides of her head, and carded his fingers through her hair so hard it hurt. The fog in her head cleared enough to startle her green eyes to snap open wide before Sasuke's lips were covering her own. Her whole being froze, just absolutely froze. A single, lone, last tear slid down her cheek. Sense and her soul returned enough to her and she jerked out of his grasp, and slapped him across the cheek. It was purely an instinctive reflex reaction, one she regretted as soon as she'd done it. If anything would drive him off the edge, it would be this.

Instead Sasuke stared at her, and for the first time, Sakura saw the boy she remembered. His eyes were black again, wide, confused, and his expression was one of surprise. Not at what she had done, she realized, but at what _he_ had done. There were so many ways, so many dozens of ways, to silence a person. So why…?

Clearly he didn't know it himself. In fact, he pushed her back on her rear, hard, as if the kiss had been _her_ fault. Sakura scrambled to sit up, as he had simply reeled back on his own hands and was settling into a more comfortable position, knee to the ground so he could rise quickly if he needed to. He peered at her from through his curtain of blue black hair, his narrow coal-black eyes watching her as warily as she was now regarding him. Sakura carefully tucked her legs under her and settled one hand on her lap, with one pressed to the ground in case she had to move suddenly.

For a long time, neither of them moved, or looked away.

She spoke his name.

He didn't reply. But his eyes were no longer on her. They were looking to the right, almost narrow with concentration, as if some thought troubled him. It was the calmest she had ever seen him since... Since.

Sakura dared to crawl closer to him. She reached out and, gently, moving slowly as not to arouse suspicion. His eyes went to her hand and watched it. Let it touch his knee. Let it rest on his knee. She said his name again and he still didn't move, not even when she risked letting her hand slid over and up his thigh. He watched that too. He seemed to tremble without trembling, poised to act but without intending to act. His face betrayed a sense of confusion, a warring within of sorts, and something was winning. Something was deciding. Something was waiting.

Sakura moved her other hand, slowly raising it to his face. His eyes stayed down on her now still hand, not looking up, not responding when she brushed his cheek with her fingertips, then her knuckle, lightly, before gently, delicately, cupping his cheek and his chin. Her thumb caressed his cheek, white, soft, smooth, unmarred. Perfect. He had a beautiful face, always had had a beautiful face.

His thin lips pressed tightly together in a line. There was a visible tremor, just so very slight. She whispered his name again. This time his eyes rose to hers, two still black pools, red-rimmed with fatigue, of mindless need, and filled with the soul-rending violence of his grief. He was emotionally unstable, she reminded herself. That cool control that had been his fortress had been penetrated and he had no defenses left in which to rebuild. He probably didn't know what he would do next. Or say.

Neither did Sakura.

Gently brushing a lock of hair from his face, Sakura spoke softly, speaking to those eyes, answering his previous accusations with her own gentle, yet firm assertions.

"Listen to me. I am not a lie nor has anything that I have said or done in regards to you have been a lie. I could not kill you then and I will not kill you now. I am not Konoha. I am Haruno Sakura. You are the only one I see. I loved you as a child, and I love you now. I will always love you, Sasuke-kun, no matter what do you, where you go, or who you become. I will love you even if you kill me, I will love you even if you kill my friends." Sakura smiled gently as she said all of this. She's realized the true fatal depth of her love for this broken creature kneeling before her. It was the true, till the end of time unconditional romantic love she had been waiting all of her life to feel, and it was so wrong and completely senseless that it felt right.

_Heaven help me, I love a criminal and a murderer, and I don't even care._

She kissed him then, brief, chaste, sweet, true. Gradually she drew away and removed her hand. He continued to stare at her, as if she was a strange being from another world, as if he'd never seen her before in his life. As if he couldn't believe she was real.

"Sakura…" he finally managed to say, close to a murmur. The cold frightening fury rose in him again and he seized her shoulders once more. Called her a liar. Mocked her. Did she really think any of that ever mattered to him? Was she really such a stupid weak gullible fool to believe that her love for him in any way had an impact on him whatsoever?

"No." She wasn't afraid anymore. "I don't believe it does, I _know_ it does."

"Oh?" He laughed angrily in her face. "And what makes you so sure about that?"

Sakura smiled a cold smirk of her own. "Because if I didn't matter to you and if my feelings didn't matter to you I would be dead right now. I know you well enough, Sasuke-kun, that when you want someone dead, you don't hesitate. You wanted me dead before and you didn't hesitate the way I did back then. Why are you hesitating now?"

Sasuke glared at her. It was a look so venomous it might have done her in had his Sharingan been activated. "You think I won't kill you?" he asked her at length.

"No." She spoke with perfect sincerity. "I think you could kill me. If you decided to right now, it wouldn't surprise me."

Sasuke smirked cruelly, looking more like his new-old insane self. "You think you know me so well."

Sakura was amazed at how calm she felt, and sounded. "I thought I did. I'm always willing to find out more."

He chuckled and released her. "You really are a fool." He smiled insultingly. "You really believe that just loving me is some how going to make it all better, don't you?"

She shook her head. "No. I've never thought that."

"Then why? Why are you wasting your time?"

"I'm a fool, like you said. But," she shrugged, "I'm all right with that. It's my time to waste."

Struck at a loss, he looked away again. "You are… incredibly… annoying."

She smiled again, this time for real. "Not as annoying as you are, I'm sure."

He glared at her. Sakura favored him back wryly with a calm look of her own. He moved forward and closed his hand around her upper arm firmly. She glanced down at it and then back up at him, watching his intent face imploringly.

"I won't ask you to do what I know you won't do. I know that much."

She remained silent, waiting. She knew what this was and so did he.

"Do not presume that I hold what you feel for me as anything I can expect to keep. When you turn on me, I _will_ be waiting for it, and you _will_ die."

This boy was an idiot. But she let him continue.

"I want everything from you. Your skills, your life, whatever I need, you will give it to me."

Sakura nodded. "What will you do in return?" she asked evenly.

Sasuke smirked again. "I will spare your family and your best friend, should they happen to bar my way. I will not kill any Konoha ninja unless they try to kill me first." He leveled with her, making sure they saw eye to eye. "Anything else?"

Sakura leaned in close to him. This next request was the key. If he agreed to this, she had him. "You'll let me try to make you happy, in any way that I can."

Sasuke slid his hand behind her neck and pulled her closer to him, an action that came near to startling her, but not to the point of making her flinch or blink. "Deal."

This next kiss was mutual and passionate. They were unlearned and amateurish yet the fire and the heat between them made up for any lack of skill. When they fell together to the forest floor, Sakura let him do what he pleased, and whispered to him close to his ear exactly what he needed to do. When they finished, he didn't demand she return the favor. He merely withdrew, closed her pants and leaned over her spent, sweaty form.

"Did you like that?" he asked, a completely open and innocent question, no hidden menace.

She smiled tiredly and nodded. "More than liked."

Sasuke smiled, and it was the smile of male satisfaction, untainted with anything more than the pleasure of knowing his attentions were appreciated. "I'll expect you to reciprocate."

Sakura reached out and placed her hand on his belt. "Promise?"

His elegant eyebrows began to rise. She had caught him by surprise. "You're willing…" he trailed off steadily.

Sakura kissed him again, not allowing him to complete his thought. "This is part of my love, Sasuke-kun. This is what I offer you."

He studied her face quietly. It was clear he had never seen anyone so completely at ease with herself and her life before. "I can't give you what you want," he finally said after several minutes.

Sakura smiled and shook her head. He would say that. "I don't want you to give me what I want. I want you to give me what you can."

Sasuke got to his feet and offered her his hand. She accepted it and allowed him to draw her to her feet. Still holding her hand in his between them, he continued to study her, dissecting her face with his eyes as if by doing that he would be able to read her mind. Her motives clearly confused him. _It would confuse him,_ she thought, _because he's forgotten how to love, he cannot fathom what I'm doing, or why I'm doing it_. If going in through the front door to get to his heart wouldn't work, she would try the back door. The rest would be up to Naruto. _I only hope that he'll understand what I'm doing,_ she thought with a sigh of regret for the friend she would be leaving behind, _and_ _that this isn't a betrayal of him, the village, or anything that I stand for or have fought for_. Sasuke released her hand and made a motion with his head. Together they leapt into the trees and charted a path away from Konoha.

Haruno Sakura was following her heart, though to what end it would lead her, she could not foresee. Save for she knew this much: Sasuke still needed someone in order to help him accomplish his insane ends. By providence and a quirk of fate, she had fallen into his path. As long as Sasuke needed her, there was a chance that he could be reached. From his frustrated amorous efforts earlier, it was clear to her he felt something for her, even if it was only a sort of barely repressed lust. But it was a place to start.


	6. I Know

**Disclaimer: **_Naruto is the creative property of Masashi Kishimoto. I'm only playing with a couple of his characters for entertainment purposes only. No profit has been made from this work. Lyric at the end is from "Desert Rose" by Sting._

**Author's Note: **_Inspired by manga chapter 482. I wrote this as a gift for the fans of the SasuSaku Fanclub at NarutoForums, the nicest most awesome group of fans I've ever encountered._

**"I Know"**

By Raina1

In the end, I suppose it was only appropriate that you have nothing to come back to. Where once stood proud buildings lay only rubble, where once were ready smiles and helping hands, are now frowns and vicious hands filled with knives and a hate so familiar only those who know you understand why you laugh at them. See now, you're just like me, I could almost hear you say in that harsh, broken, slightly unbalanced chuckle. How does it feel, to have nothing? How does it feel, to be nothing? How does it feel… not to feel?

I don't pity you. I never have, I don't now, and I never will. Hating you accomplishes nothing, not for me, and not for you. What would it matter? What purpose would it serve? You've hit the darkest bottom of hell and there's not much further down you could go. You're a half-blind, half-mad empty shell of a boy. And a boy you are and remain. Not a man.

No never a man.

I love what you were and for what's still buried deep inside of you somewhere beyond the touch of any hands not strong enough to reach that far. That's enough for me to keep you where you are in my heart and untainted by the evil blackness that surrounds your voice and your actions and your heart. I know you see what I've done to shield myself against the invisible things that have stung you so blind to your own light. You see it, you hate it, and worst, you don't understand it. You scream and you rail against my impenetrable walls that bleed and cry and fall down yet – yet – when you look back over your shoulder at me – I'm still there. I'm still standing and looking at you. I'm following you. I'm standing behind you. I'm next to you. I'm in front of you, looking you deep in those insane spinning red orbs you cherish so much, and I'm not backing down.

You're not used to this. I can see it in the tiny furrow between your eyes, the irritation that edges the tone of your monotonous voice, and the very way in which you carry yourself. I irritate the hell out of you and you just can't seem to understand it – you can't accept it. So you try to wing it. You belittle, you posture, you accuse, look down your nose at me, turn your back and try to walk away. It's ridiculous the methods you employ to shake my confidence. I almost laugh, but I don't, because despite what you are now, I'm not here to mock you. I don't mock you. That's not how I see you. You deserve to be pounded beyond one tenth of your life, but you don't deserve to be put down. I've seen what that does to you, and for as little sympathy you seem to invoke from me right now, I'll not stoop that low.

I'm not a Uchiha.

The wheels are turning in your head as you run down and realize there's nothing you can say anymore. I'm doing most of the talking anyway. You're being Sasuke right now: you're watching, assessing. You've stuck me in that analytical brain of yours and you're trying to figure me out. Your memory of me isn't gelling with the woman standing before you right now. There's conflict in you. I can feel it. I'm probably the only person who could play a game of poker with you and win because, Sasuke-kun, for all that I know about you and still don't understand about you, your motives or your actions, I still can read you. Maybe I don't always understand what I'm reading about you but the language is the same. And what I read right now is that your resolve is wavering. You're not sure about me anymore. You never were.

But you believe me. You look into my face, my eyes, when I speak from my own heart. You listen, and you hear, and you get it. You can't do anything but push forward and hate, hate, hate, yet when I walk right up to your face and tell you like it is from my heart and soul, you don't fight me. You don't guard. You don't doubt. You wait. You decide.

You turn. You move on. You look over your shoulder and very deliberately gesture for me to follow you.

I'm almost awestruck.

You trust me. You trust me.

I follow you now and I think maybe now you get it. I don't know what you saw in me that day, what you heard, but I like to think something got through that time. Whatever I said, whatever I did, cut through to whatever you have left of your heart. I still don't know what I am to you. You won't tell me. Maybe you don't know what I am to you. I think that's why you answer my questions with silence, why you don't reject me, because you just can't understand your own feelings. You're half-blind now and for the first time you don't even trust yourself. But you trust me. You don't know why you trust me, because a large part of you doesn't want to. Even now you study me and wait for me to stab you in the back. Yet as you watch you still keep presenting your back to me.

You want me to betray you, don't you? That's it isn't it? You want justification for leaving me cold and alone, crying at your back, because you feel, well, you earned this, and hell, it's what you'd do, did do, if the person you loved betrayed you. You're not sorry and you're not asking for my forgiveness. Even though I know somewhere deep down in places you won't acknowledge you are sorry… and you won't say it.

And I forgive you anyway.

That's the rub of it, isn't it Sasuke-kun? My forgiveness and that trust I earned from you and continue to keep because it's the only real good thing you have in this life that brother of yours didn't manage to take from you. It's the only thing your real enemies haven't managed to sweet talk and manipulate out of you. You knew me before they knew you. They don't know I only want one thing from you, the only thing I ever wanted from you, and even if you can't give it to me right now, it's a good thing, and damn them to hell with they and theirs if they try to twist that. They can't… because you know me. You know and they don't.

It's the only mistake you think you've made that you thought was a mistake that isn't.

In the end, when you're finally broken, finally at the point of no return, and the specter of everything you've been comes back to haunt you, to kill you, even though it's what you've earned, I protect you from it. I take hold of you and drag you back and you reach back for me and you let me help you. You let yourself be saved by me. And that's when you apologize. Even as I too bleed the life out of me, you apologize.

But I live… and you live too.

And when they find us, tired, healing, me crying, you just laying there and taking it, everyone is laughing. Everything's on fire, and maybe you'll never get your dignity back again, but you're fighting a smile, and you're looking at me again. I'm looking back at you too, not fighting a smile, and we're not saying anything. I feel your hand in mine squeeze my fingers. You close your eyes and let our heads touch before you let go. You let go and trust me – trust us – to take you home again.

This time, when I cry, I'm not doing it because you've left me. You've come back to me. You're in my arms. You're trying to smile because you want to do something for yourself this time - and you want to do it for me too. I love you again in that moment and I say so, just suddenly – "I love you" - for no reason at all.

And you say something this time. It's quiet, and so tired, but you say it, and close to my ear, in a breath that makes me shiver.

"I know."

::No sweet perfume ever tortured me more than this::


	7. Interlude I

**Author's Note: **Originally part of a discontinued-at-this-time SasuSaku fan fiction, _The Life of a Lesser God_.

**Interlude I**

_Summer nights in Konoha were hot and uncompromising. Tonight was another scorcher, close to ninety, and she was feeling every uncomfortable degree of it. The sheets had been stripped off her bed entirely, leaving the mattress bare. Even so, it provided little relief. The small bowl of ice water she kept by her bed had quickly become lukewarm, the rag lying in a damp ball beside it. Slowly puffing the air from her lips, Sakura stared restively at the ceiling, one bare arm thrown over her forehead. Errant strands of her hair stuck to her skin, dark from sweat._

_God, wouldn't I give for a nice meat locker to sleep in. She suddenly found herself envying the town butcher. That guy had an entire walk in freezer to himself, the lucky bastard. Sakura idly wondered if she could pay him to let her spend her nights in there, no never mind the dead animal carcasses hanging from the heat must have killed off her brain cells. She was feeling jealous of _frozendead animals_. When would this heat spell end? Considering it had been like this for the past several weeks, there didn't appear to be an end in sight. She hissed a curse and kicked both of her legs out, frustrated. Thank goodness there wasn't a mission to go on tomorrow. After this sweltering night, she knew she would not be able to function the next day. Not that she could accomplish much in this weather. _

_It would still be nice to get some sleep though. Sleep prevented her mind from wandering down the paths of memory she had forbidden herself from. The ones that made silent tears slip out from the corners of her eyes, soaking her pillow. The ones that no matter how she fought managed to wrest control and dominate her mind._

_It had been more than two years since he took to the road, more than two years since he had slain his brother and vanished into obscurity. In his wake, he had left behind nothing but a ragtag team of players that had called themselves Hebi who had answered to no one but him. They too, over time, vanished into the same vacuum he had, disappearing as if they never were. Every attempt to summon him home had come to failure. If asked why, he gave an inscrutable "no" and if anyone tried to force him, he fought back with an unforgivable amount of fury and hatred. _

_Sakura, perhaps inevitably, wound up being the only one out of all who had been sent after him in those early days to get some kind of concrete answer. He had waited to get her alone, katana to her throat, close to her ear, before he told her calmly and clearly his reason for not coming home._

"_When I told you I was done with Konoha, I meant it," he told her, so close, his heated breath tickling her neck. "I'm finished with my past. There is nothing you can offer me, Sakura."_

"_That's not true…" she had murmured back, closing her eyes to contain the tears before opening to meet his, dark and depthless. Finally, here and now, she could say what she had been longing to say to him. "What I offered you before, I offer you now and I offer you always. You say your bond with us is done… but it's not true. Not as long as one of us feels something for you, Sasuke-kun. Not as long as we think you're worth it… and that will always be for only us to decide."_

_She remembered the muddled shock and rage he had thrown her then, as if she had said the cruelest, most impossible truth – and she had. He had tried it then… to convince her to give up on him. He had gripped her head, fingers carded through her hair, twisting the strands tightly, almost ripping them from her scalp. He had pressed the kunai against her skin so hard blood ran down her neck. With his Sharingan he had plagued her mind with horrific nightmare images. But none of them worked. None of them caused her steely gaze to falter from his. He had left her with a choked curse before fleeing. She let him go that time. If she had known it was the last time she would see him…_

_Sakura sat up and planted her feet on the floor. Enough. Time to stand in front of the freezer._

_Getting up, she went into the kitchen and opened the freezer door, letting out a contented sound of pleasure as the cold air flowed over her. It wasn't the walk in freezer of her fantasies, but it would have to do. She reached in and grabbed an ice cube from one of the trays, running it over her face, her neck and chest after she pulled down her nightgown. Crossing her arms over herself, she prepared to pull it over her head._

_Someone tapped on her door._

_Sakura gasped, by reflex glancing at the clock on the wall. Who on earth would be calling for her at two in the morning? Medical emergency probably. It had to be really bad then, she widened her eyes as she made herself decent by pulling on a robe, though she hated to do it. Oh God, not tonight…_

_When she opened the door, she stood stock still, letting it continue to slide open until the door bumped gently against the frame, bouncing back slightly. Her hand was over her heart, her foot stepping backward, her other over her mouth. Her green eyes were round and wide._

_This had to be a dream… or else the beginning of one of the worst kind of nightmares._

"_Sasuke-kun…" his name left her lips in a whisper, as if she were afraid to speak it._

_It was he, sure as she was standing there. His clothes were worn, well traveled, his hair was the same mess it always was and his eyes were as cold as his expression was blank. A knapsack hung over one shoulder, the end of his katana stuck out from behind the other. Sweat clung to his skin and his hair. He smelled of earth, dust and ashes. There were shadows under his eyes, worrisome shadows that only served to highlight the pallor in his translucent skin. He was probably malnourished, judging from his sallow coloring. His frame, while lean and wiry, seemed thin and strained. No injuries, at least._

"_Sakura." It was a statement. It was all it took for her to snap out of her dream-like reverie to the reality at hand. Sasuke was _here_. But why?_

_If he intended to say more, she didn't give him a chance. Despite the likely danger of getting so close to him, Sakura obeyed the impulse to embrace him. Drawing back after a breath, she cradled his face in her hands, pushed her forehead against his, twined locks of his coarse hair between her fingers. Throughout all, he did not move, save his eyes, which closed against her touches. When she drew back, he opened them then, gazing down her with the same expressionless look he gave everything he gazed upon. He lifted a hand to cup the side of her face. In the heat, it burned her skin like a brand. What did this mean? Now, though, wasn't the time for an interrogation; she could tell he was not here to answer her insignificant questions. That was not the kind of person he was._

_So he stayed with her. For several days, she was the only one who knew about his return. He spoke little, ate his meals quietly and slept like he hadn't slept a wink in years. There were times he would conk out for a whole day. While she was away on a mission, she came home to find every dish washed every thread of laundry clean and the whole apartment dust free. His few indulgences were reading books… any book. One day he was reading through some of her medical texts, the next he was perusing her trashy romance novels (she had to glance at him twice the first time she saw him at it, to make sure she wasn't hallucinating). All throughout, she did not ply him with the questions she so desperately wanted to ask, for fear of breaking this spell, of driving him away again. _

_So she bided her time. She made him tea in the mornings and a few of his evening meals when he would let her. For those few days, Sakura basked in the bliss of his presence. Sometimes she would watch him as he would read or contemplate the wind moving through the leaves of the tree outside of a window. Watch the play of light and shadow on his face._

_And she wasn't the only one doing the watching. Several times Sakura caught him watching her, if only out of the corner of her eye. Maybe while she was washing dishes, pruning her house violet or perusing her medical scrolls, she would catch him staring at her. Of course, he would immediately direct his gaze elsewhere if she turned her head to capture his eye. Several times she had to bite her tongue or lip to keep from laughing aloud. It was a comfort to know the resplendent and perfect Uchiha Sasuke failed miserably at… whatever this was._

_Finally, on the sixth day since his arrival, she cornered him (sort of, he was sitting on her easy chair reading a scroll) and demanded that he tell her why he was here. She had just returned from a mission and was at the end of her limit. Somehow the sight of him sitting there like that for the umpteenth time drove her off the edge._

_He watched her steadily for several moments, measuring his response carefully. "Am I still worth it?" he said suddenly._

_Sakura wavered, caught off guard. "Still worth…?"_

"_Your offer," he said patiently. "You don't remember," he concluded, sounding somewhat bitter yet expectant._

_Completely perplexed, Sakura blinked several times and gradually sank down on the ottoman in front of him. "No, I mean, yes, of course I remember. But what does that have to do with anything?" _

"_I would think that you of all people wouldn't need me to have to explain myself to you."_

"_Sasuke-kun," she spoke quietly, feeling so lost so weary she couldn't even summon up the strength to scream at him. "I'm not sure I know you anymore. How can you expect me to decipher your cryptic statements? You're going to have to tell me, because I'm not sure I can trust what's going through your mind right now when I can't even be sure of my…"_

_In the middle of her babbling, he abruptly leaned over her, one hand on each side of the ottoman and pressed his mouth against hers. Forgetting her fumble for words, Sakura immediately surrendered, moving her lips in time with his. Her hands came to rest on his shoulders stroking his neck, jerking as she felt his hands run up her sides and then down. He pulled her to her feet and she went with him, mouths never parting. They kissed until she was certain every part of her body was barren of feeling and mobility. If he decided to throw her down on the rug and have his way with her right at that moment, she knew he would never have had an easier victory. However Sasuke drew back then, inches away from her shuddering lips, his eyes playing over her features, her face. If he broke her now, he would kill her. She knew it and he knew it. So when she said it, she knew her fate as far as this man was concerned, was sealed._

"_Yes."_


	8. Interlude II

**Interlude II**

_Sakura hadn't anticipated that after the day Sasuke kissed her, he would disappear again. It happened as suddenly as he had arrived. One morning, she woke, only to find him missing once again. Sakura quietly fretted, tearing at her hair in silent anguish. Tears stung unshed at the corners of her eyes. It wasn't like she could tell anyone about it… not without having to first explain why she had harbored him in her home for a full week and a half without notifying anyone. At this point, she would be in about as much trouble, though only slightly less, considering the nature of his defection. She didn't even want to think of what Naruto would have done if he'd known about it. _

_Damn him! Damn that man! After what he said and what he did after what he said…She supposed she shouldn't have been so surprised. Nothing was worse than the first time they'd parted… not when she had only been thirteen years old and had never had to suffer for living. Not like he had. At least here and now, she could deal with it better. Emotionally anyway. Mentally, it was the same old pain, the same old damnable _pain_._

_So three nights after he went missing, Sakura took out her frustrations on the log training grounds, smashing hunks of lumber into smithereens for the sheer, physical pleasure of it. It helped a little to mentally implant said the object of her torment on the surface. It made destroying them into a very satisfying experience._

"_Making firewood?"_

_Sakura paused mid-strike, stopping so suddenly she nearly pitched forward on her face. She looked up._

_There he was. Perched atop the log, clothed entirely in black, he peered down at her; his profile was a stark contrast to the blue-black sky. His head tilted slightly to the side in curiosity. Playing it cool, Sakura took a moment to regain her composure, wiping off the sweat on her brow, calming her breathing, straightening her posture. _

"_You left again," she stated casually, her tone belying the anger and irritation she was really feeling. "Do you have any idea of what you did to me?"_

"_Yes."_

_Sakura clenched her hands into fists, shaking. He could play the calm game too, though he was no fool; he could see through her false veneer to the seething contempt roiling within. She knew he saw it, she could tell, from the way he watched her face so steadily._

_He continued on, blithely sidestepping the emotional firestorm building before him. "I was needed elsewhere. I won't make apologies for it," he sounded bored, "but I will apologize for not informing you. Had there been time, I would have."_

I doubt it._ Sakura folded her arms. "That doesn't change anything. You still left. Again."_

"_Yes. My reasons were sound."_

"_Were they?"_

_He appeared annoyed with her. "I already told you."_

"_And you're doing a great job of explaining yourself," she responded bitterly. "Tell me the truth or I'm going home."_

_Sasuke leapt down to the ground, forcing her to back up. "Juugo was in need of assistance," he explained apathetically. "I was the only one who could stop him."_

"_How did you know about him?"_

"_Suigetsu appeared while you slept. Apparently, they'd been traveling together for mutual benefit and Juugo had become… unstable. Suigetsu sought me out of annoyance." Sasuke smirked, perhaps amused by the memory. _

_Sakura felt a deep and painful lurch in her gut. It was an excruciating blow. That he wouldn't hesitate to help the members of his old team Hebi without a second thought and yet continued to shun herself, Naruto, and Kakashi. It was more than she could bear. Had they really meant so little to him? Had all that had passed between any of them real? The very idea made her heartsick._

_She sighed. _I would have been so much better off hating him_. Her problems concerning him would be as good as solved if she did._

"_Thank you." She smiled, appreciating the bitter irony of those words, before letting the set of her shoulder relax. Pulling off her gloves, Sakura stuffed them back into her pockets as she turned and began to walk away._

_Sasuke followed her, for whatever inexplicable notion he chose to, and Sakura didn't stop until she was inside her home in the middle of her living room. He closed the door and stayed where he was, watching her through the moonlit shafted darkness._

_Sakura chewed on her lip, debating. Her rage had nowhere to go anymore. All of her physical resources were exhausted; her arms and hands ached from expressing it without number against inanimate foes. The crux of the trouble with having this bastard around her was that there was no 'putting' him anywhere. He didn't fit into any place in her life she could think to tuck him… he always managed to rip free and drift around her in an unpredictable orbit of his own making._

_She turned, her expression intent, yet unfathomable. She moved right up to him close, struggling to retain her courage. She was breathing so hard she could hear the sound in her ears. Her eyes locked with his, challenging, daring, tantalizing him. _

_He seized her so suddenly she gasped and tried to fight him off. But she stopped the second his mouth descended upon hers, ravenous and desperate. Gradually he slowed down once he felt her respond. They stood there in the darkened foyer for several minutes, doing nothing but cling to each other and explore each other's mouths._

_Sasuke gradually worked his way to her ear, then past her lobe, down her neck. His breaths were fast, erratic. His fingers fumbled at her vest impatiently, grabbing, pulling. He was pressed up against her close enough that she knew very well what he wanted. Well, she knew what she wanted too, and she intended to take it first. Sakura relieved her vest and shirt for him, before pushing him hard against the chest until his back slammed against the wall. She seized his face between her hands, raked her fingers through his hair, and yanked him down to her mouth again. God, she had fantasized about that mouth for years and she was going to take her time tasting it, dammit. She slid her hands under his shirt, pushed it over his head and discarded it. Sasuke gave her a feral grin when she began to decisively undo the fastenings of his pants. He grabbed her hands, stilling them, and before she could breathe, he had flipped their positions so that it was she who was pinned against the wall, her wrists fast as her sides. He leaned in close to her face, that feral grin sliding to a smirk. _

_That bastard! Her face glowed with fury. Fine, if he wanted to play it this way, she was up for the challenge. She thrust her head forward and started lavishing his neck and shoulders with licks and bites. When his hold on her wrists relaxed, she went for his pants again and this time managed to get them about halfway down his legs. He let her go as far as that before removing them himself. Sakura slipped out of her own pants and kicked them aside, while moving down the hall backwards toward the bedroom. Sasuke's eyes traveled up and down her naked form. A dark lust filled his eyes, a lust she had seen before, but she realized that this lust was solely because of her. She had power and he wanted it. He wanted it as much as he had ever wanted the power to defeat Itachi. To be what he wanted to possess… it was frightening, but it was a prospect she was more than willing to face._

_Sakura hid the fact she was trembling with a serene, assured smile. This time she didn't gasp when he seized her then and forced her to the ground. He wasted no time in parting her legs and thrusting two fingers up inside her before covering her mouth with his. He worked on her until her hips were arching off the ground and she was crying from the pain and the pleasure._

_Then he was in her. He gathered her in his arms and rolled them onto their sides, his hips thrusting against hers with complete abandon. He buried his face in her neck, one arm steadying him, the other clutching her knee, keeping her open to him. Sakura clawed at him, holding nothing back, not even her cries. She probably looked like he raping her but she didn't care. She'd waited for too damn long for this with him and she was going to enjoy every second of it. _

_When he started to shudder and his breathing, she knew he had to be close. Then he came, loudly, before going rigid and collapsing on top of her. Gradually he rolled off to lie next to her, trying to get back his breath. _

"_We're doing that again," Sakura told him, once she'd gotten her breath back._

_He nodded, though his arm was thrown over his damp forehead, where his hair clung to it._

_They did, a few minutes later, in her bed. Her hair was damp and sweat sluiced down their skins; her fingers dug into his shoulders as she had him pressed against the headboard. God, he was beautiful, even with his hair a mess, his face wincing up and his mouth occasionally falling open to release a moan. To draw things out, she moved slowly, relishing in watching his eyes roll back in his head. She felt a thrill of gratification when he plead for her to move more quickly, his request half-choked and barely understandable._

_At last, Sakura inhaled sharply, closing her eyes in bliss, savoring the moment of rapture. He reached his peak shortly following, his whole body stiffening, rising, before relaxing, his expression sliding into one of contentment. Sakura slid away and lazily collapsed beside him, propped up by a pillow. Boy, was she going to have to do laundry tomorrow – but she would enjoy it._

"_How was that?" she murmured sleepily, absently, brushing errant locks of hair away from her eyes. "Was that good?"_

_Sasuke glanced at her, looking so completely taxed out, she expected him to fall asleep any second. His tired expression answered her. She smiled, completely happy, supporting her head with her elbow. Hell yeah._

_Then he spoke. "You must have killed them."_

_She blinked. "Hmm?"_

"_Do you always have this much energy or are women always like that?"_

_Sakura was confused. "What do you mean?"_

He looked stubborn and she could sense he was blushing furiously; he couldn't seem to look her in the eye. "I… I've never… I mean…"

_Sakura's mouth fell open and she was sitting up, staring at him. He had to be joking. After what happened out there in the hall, she was so sure… "Sasuke-kun… you…"His head turned so she couldn't see his face. He grew livid and clutched the sheets angrily when he noticed from the corner of his eye that she was laughing so hard, she was crying. His face felt hot. Sasuke stared into the distance, so completely mortified, had there been a kunai within arm's reach, he'd have killed himself with it. _

_But then she subsided and palmed away the tears. "It's okay. I wouldn't know either." Sasuke turned fully on her, staring, his dark eyes widening with shock. She smiled at him, caressing his cheek with her fingers gently. "It was only ever you, Sasuke-kun."_


	9. A Place To Start II

"**A Place to Start II"**

**By Raina1**

In the end, she never came home.

It seemed sort of odd, now that Sakura thought about it, that she, in all of her predisposed goodness and light, had joined the ranks of the fallen. She didn't think of herself as having plunged from her personal pedestal of grace, for whatever measure of worth of what 'grace' meant to her. But she had fallen, and fallen far, and she knew with unswerving conviction, if offered the chance to do it over again, she would have chosen that fateful plunge a second time and a third. No mad man was worth this much torment then again, no sane man was either.

Uchiha Sasuke wasn't worth being labeled an enemy of the world. Yet here she was.

Despite their agreement the day they crossed paths and sealed their pact in a moment of lust and release, Sasuke remained wary of her. Every time she tricked gazes with him, he was always watching her back, narrowed eyed and watchful. No move she made went unnoticed. No word she spoke to him went unanalyzed. If she had any duplicitous thoughts or motives in mind, this might have made her nervous. However, Sakura was true to her word in thought and in deed, and possessed no intentions beyond the ones she had stated to him. Naturally she knew this plan of hers, to try to make him happy and getting at his heart, would more than likely turn out to be the futile flailing of the lovelorn. Was it so wrong to follow the yearnings of her heart? No. Could she expect to succeed at getting to the yearnings of his? Probably not. The boy was damaged goods. His ability to truly trust and love had been obliterated in a pool of blood in his early childhood.

So why was she here? Oh right, because she loved him.

And maybe, just a little bit, it's because while he never voiced any affection, if any existed, he certainly had no problem showing it. He never outwardly demonstrated whether or not her promise to attempt to make him happy was actually working, he did make a grand show that, if nothing else, her body pleased him very much. It would make sense that Sasuke would find something, a "need" to satisfy (rather than a want), in her for his use. She was a convenient form of release so that he could keep his head cold and his mind clear on task. She knew this because he told her.

It made Sakura fear at first then she would be made to submit to him whenever he felt he needed to lose himself or clear his mind of the monsters that continually subjected him to their inner torments. Yet when she refused him some nights, he accepted her refusals passively. If course, it also meant she wasn't allowed to sleep alone. At first this infuriated her, yet her anger subsided when she made an interesting, hopeful discovery, of what went on when he thought she was sleeping. (She was very good at faking sleep… she even fooled Madara a few times).

He would run his hand up and down a bare arm, or she would feel the brush of his hand across her face as he tucked in a lock of hair behind her ear. He did other things too, lingering on the edge of her consciousness, like kissing her forehead, or pulling her inert form in his arms, holding her close to his warmth for a few hours. If she wasn't feigning sleep, she would have sworn Sasuke was incapable of expressing such covert affection. He was a cold-hearted man during the day, cruel of tongue, his actions insane and his anger at the world often misplaced. Yet at night he brought down a little of this mask of madness, he closed those spinning red orbs of his birthright, because deep at heart, perhaps some part of him wanted to be like the Sasuke she had known him as.

Sometimes he still was… and she liked to think her presence allowed him, if only for a few moments, to go back to being a person he wished he still was that he didn't know he _still_ was underneath the darkness devouring him alive. Sakura had heard it said that men act the way they do before the women they shared their bodies with because they are trying to live up to the woman's ideal of what they want their lover to be. At least he wasn't telling her he loved her. That wouldn't have made sense.

It didn't mean she didn't wish he would… or that she suspected he did.

Was possessiveness a type of love? Sakura understood men had their ways of marking their territory, but she never thought Suigetsu's flirting with her the first time she met the sharp-toothed young man would actually piss him off.

There was no warning, no indication he was angry with her until they stayed at that inn, and he slid closed the door to the room he made her share with him with a bang.

Sakura glanced up from where she was setting down her travel bag. Sasuke stood in front of the door, leaning against it, with his arms folded over his chest. Glaring. At her.

Several heart beats passed. You could count them. One, two, three…

Finally the silence became unbearable. "What?" she affected a hint of irritation and honest to goodness confusion. What was he pissed off at her about now? She'd done everything she'd been asked to do today, much of it against her better judgment, and against her own morals.

"Don't play that with me, Sakura." His fingers twitched, as if they itched to reach his sword. There was another mutual sharing of silent glares. "Suigetsu," he finally stated.

"What about him?" She winced when he brought his fist back and punched the door.

"You know what I'm talking about. If I had wanted a whore, I would have kept Karin."

Sakura stood up, her mouth opening, so outraged she didn't know where to begin. How could he even think…? Where the _hell_ was this coming from? What did he think he saw happen between Suigetsu and herself when they had spoken?

He smirked grimly, as if her silence proved him right. He lifted his chin, looking down on her from aloft. Incensed, and without thinking, Sakura went up to him and without preamble, or warning, slapped him across the face. He caught her hand when she drew it back again, smiled that strange smile of his, before he flipped her so she was pressed against the door.

"I am _not_ a whore," she spoke with quiet fury. "You know me better than anyone. I haven't looked at another man since you left, and you know I never would. You couldn't pay me enough to fuck someone else."

Sasuke stared at her, the disconcertion plain on his face for a few seconds, before another easy smirk slid in its place. He pressed his body against hers, and covered her mouth with his own, his tongue pushing, demanding past her lips. Sakura wrapped her arms around him and pulled off the belt around his waist. A few minutes later, they were lying in their shared bedroll, naked, sweating, and spent.

With her back turned toward her exhausted lover, Sakura allowed a small smile to turn her lips upwards.

Fallen, falling, gone.


	10. A Matter of Trust

**Author's Note: **_Originally written as part of a self-created writing challenge I called the Robert Frost Challenge where I take lines out of poems by Robert Frost and write a fic around it._

**A Matter of Trust**

He isn't talking to her.

He hasn't spoken to anyone, really. It doesn't make sense to her, not at first. When they won the battle to bring him home – when they dragged everything out in the open, exposing emotions both raw and real and painful, tearing free scars that had refused to heal – she thought they had done the impossible. She thought when he finally surrendered to his inner light, the light so long believed extinguished, they had won him back from the darkness. She thought the little boy whose heart had been blackened and torn from his chest had returned to them.

Then when they came home, he shut himself away from the world, and she realized yet again, she hadn't understood anything, hadn't understood _him_. Naruto got it – Naruto always got it – it's why they were able to bring him home at all. Without his passionate unending devotion to a friend everyone had given up for gone a long time ago, Sasuke would still be out there drifting in the ether, lost, and most probably dead. Just thinking about him dying, alone, cold, angry and sad somewhere in a dark hole made something clench up inside of Sakura's chest. No. She would put up with a thousand burnt down villages before she'd ever let that happen.

Because, she realizes, he's lived long enough inside of a dark hole; he doesn't need to die in one too.

But this wall he's put himself behind… this shutting off of himself to the whole world after all of this… it's scaring her. Maybe it's natural, normal behavior: after all, coming back meant facing those he'd almost gotten killed for his sake. Coming back means he's admitted in some way to being wrong. To being the one who needs to say he's sorry.

Sakura doesn't think Sasuke has as much to apologize for as many might think he should. After all, just saying sorry in this case can't be considered enough. He has to do it through actions, and no one else is as good at speaking through his actions as Uchiha Sasuke.

_If only he would talk to me._ Sakura stood forlornly in front of the door to Sasuke's apartment, hand poised to knock. _He knows better than anyone I'm the sort who needs to hear what he has to say_. _No never mind that I can understand what he says through the things he does._ _I _need _to hear it… and at this point… he owes me that. He knows he owes me that. _

This is why this door is staying shut, why he's keeping himself from her. Sasuke knows Sakura needs him to communicate with her in the one way he doesn't know how and for that this door has become an obstacle… and it's about time this last figurative wall separating them needs to come down. And she has to be the one to destroy it.

So Sakura doesn't knock. She digs into her pocket, takes out a key, and she opens the door. Carefully she pokes her head in to the apartment, almost expecting a hail of kunai. When it's clear that no booby traps have been triggered by her entrance, Sakura enters with confidence and closes the door softly behind her. It doesn't take her long to find Sasuke, as he seems to have made pensively staring out of windows an acceptably illuminating past time. Sakura stops short when she sees the young man perched on the windowsill, knee raised, with one arm casually draped over the knee. As always, her heart aches when she sees him. She's loved him since they were children and years later and now, she's come to accept she will always love this creature of the darkness. For no woman can continue to love a man like him without the love being true. Perhaps this is why Sasuke has kept her at arm's length, and perhaps it's why he's even tried to slit her neck from pulse to pulse so many days ago. He knows what she is… what that thing inside of her that he owns is.

_All he has to do is tell me no,_ Sakura thought, fighting traitorous tears. _Tell me no and I'll leave him alone. Tell me no and I won't bother him anymore. It's all he has to do to be rid of me. Then I can get over him and then… then I can move on. I'll never regret loving him but at least I'll know where I stand with him, and being his friend will hurt a whole hell of a lot less than living the way I'm living now. _

"Sasuke-kun." The name escapes her in a soft whisper. She knows he sees her standing there. She just needs to remind herself of where she is. That she's still here.

At the sound of her voice, Sasuke's head turns, following his black eyes as they shift and eventually rest upon her. Sakura has to hold her breath for a moment, swallowing, before she is able to resume breathing. _He'll always do this to me,_ she thought with some despair. _I don't think anything will be able to change that. At least now I know that I can stand before him and not act like some simpering little thing that would have done anything he said. I know what he is and I know what I am._

Sakura smiles, somehow it's still something she can do around him, as she approaches and sits on the opposite side of the windowsill. She notes as he automatically shifts his knee aside to give her room to sit. It means she is not unwelcome. Uninvited but not unwelcome.

"I haven't seen you around in a while," she begins cheerfully. "Naruto told me you'd been staying in a lot so I'd thought I'd come by." Smile, smile and the world will smile back, Sakura. "It's a shame you won't go out, because we've been having some wonderful weather these past several days. Granted, it tends to get a little hot around noon but generally…"

"Sakura."

Sakura closes her mouth.

Sasuke appears to be taking a deep breath. "You don't have to pretend."

Damn him! Sakura's fingers curled into her palms. "I've… already said everything I've needed to say to you," she spoke softly, averting her eyes from his. "I've said it all."

"No you haven't."

Sakura's jaw clenches and she whips on him, feeling a familiar, hated anger swell within. "All right, smart guy, you're right, I haven't! Since when has _anything_ I've ever said made _any_ difference to you? I would just be happy enough to get past it and move on. I wish you'd let me." She pushed off and stood, not sure where this rage is coming from so suddenly and just hurting too much now to care.

Sasuke frowns, just slightly. "Get past what?"

Sakura wants to tear out her hair. "Get past…" She exhales loudly, making herself calm down. "Never mind."

Sasuke drops his leg and stands, staring at her. "What do you want from me?" he asks simply.

Sakura is close to tears now. "You don't know?" she asks, trying not to cry, and realizes she's going to fail miserably.

He steps closer to her. She does not move away. He lifts his hand, lowers it and makes one of his "Hn" noises. For the first time, she notices that he appears frustrated. Sakura peers up at him, glancing momentarily at the hand, still raised partway, and then at him, curiously. Tentatively she reaches out and touches that hand, enfolding it with her own, and eventually, growing bold when he doesn't pull it away, entwining their fingers together. He stares at their connected hands in a mixture of soft surprise and speculation, a light frown furrowing his brow. Then he looks back up at her and, incredibly, there is a light pink dusting on his cheeks.

"I…" he begins hesitantly. "I… don't know anything about this."

Clarity slams into Sakura like a locomotive train. Suddenly her fear and her anger disappear. Suddenly she wants to curse and break things, not because of him, but because of her own stupidity. Smart as she is, she has never bothered to take on the full picture. Of course, of course, it makes sense, _it makes sense._ Sakura smiles now, for real, and knows she has her work cut out for her, and that this is probably going to be harder than she has dreamed possible. But now that she has this she has something to work with. This is something she can do for him. Maybe in the end he'll change his mind and maybe she will too but he'll be the better for it, and so will she.

"I don't know much either," she admits, tugging closer so their bodies are lightly touching. "If you trust me… I think we can make it work. We know more than we think we do. I'd really like to find that out."

Sasuke appears uncertain, and perhaps looks a little afraid, but he nods. "I trust you."

Sakura smiles.


	11. Tough Love

**Author's Note: **_Originally written as part of a self-created writing challenge I called the Robert Frost Challenge where I take lines out of poems by Robert Frost and writing a fic around it._

**Tough Love**

Sakura lifts her dirt streaked face from where she kneels in the ashes. Her eyes pool like two still water lakes before a single blink sends rivers tracing muddy patterns down her dusty cheeks. It is not from sorrow she weeps but from the heat pressing against her back, scorching, burning, destroying the landscape, turning it blacker than the flames themselves. She palms away these treacherous channels quickly, furious at herself for lacking – always lacking – the will to control her heart. Her heart, her salvation and her sin, for her enemy stands before her now with a blood soaked sword, a blood soaked heart, and a face surprisingly more quiet than the night that is engulfed in flame.

"Can you see it from the other side?" he whispers, just barely above the hot breath of the inferno that wreathes the three of them. "Can you truly understand what you've sacrificed?"

Sakura lowers her head, petal colored strands of her pale hair hanging to hide her eyes. She cannot answer him yet, cannot speak around a throat parched dry from the surrounding heat.

Yet Naruto can answer him now. Naruto can always answer him, instinctively. "Yes," he whispers, blue eyes crystal clear with the undying determination that has brought all three of them to where they are now. "We can see it from the other side. We can understand everything we've sacrificed."

Sasuke grins, smirks, and hides a cruel laugh they can hear in their souls. "Then you're more foolish than I thought. I know that you," he nods to Naruto and then to Sakura, "and you are both smarter than this. You've heard what I've told you. I've told you so many times and you never listened." He lifts the blade, rusty red. "Now I'm going to make the both of you regret your faith in me."

Sakura finds her voice. "That will never happen."

Sasuke pauses, frowns, displeased. "You still think even now I'm salvageable? That this -" he gestures at the tattered remains of himself – "is worth anything to either of you at all? Really? THIS?"

"Yes," Sakura replies steadily, her strength growing with each spoken word. "We love you, Sasuke. It's why we've never given up on you… and it's why we're both standing here now, facing you, even though none of us may live to return home."

"I may. I don't know about you." Sasuke is lazy, arrogant, self-assured.

Naruto grins and punches his fist into the center of his palm. "What do you think, Sakura-chan? Up for dishing out a little tough love?"

Sakura exchanges a mischievous look with her erstwhile teammate. "It's not like any of us are going anywhere, right Sasuke-kun?"

Sasuke's face darkens as the spinning red irises of his eyes begin to whirl. Gradually the familiar sound of a thousand birds crying out begins to fill the air before at last drowning out the flames' roar.


	12. Our Little Secret

**Disclaimer:** Naruto is the creation of Masashi Kishimoto. I claim no ownership of such characters.

**Author's Note:** This fic is set two years before the Uchiha massacre.

* * *

**Our Little Secret**

There were a lot of things the people of Konoha, and even her own clan, didn't know about the wife of Uchiha Fugaku. In their eyes she was an ebony haired woman with that classic beauty equal to that of a princess presenting a cheerful smile, doe eyes and lilting laughter to the world. An unremarkable person if she didn't have nobility shadowing her every footstep and a fearful bloodline running through her veins. Some of it was a front and some of it wasn't though she acted so convincingly the part, nobody took her for anything more.

If she _didn't_ have her way, they _would_ have, for Uchiha Mikoto was a bit more than what she appeared to be. For instance, not many knew she had a medical license even though she never practiced medicine outside of patching up her sons after training. Contrary to the empty-headedness she projected she actually possessed a sly sense of humor, a quick wit and a rather wicked playful streak. Her life as a kunoichi wasn't stellar but it was full of memorable moments. When she was nineteen years old she was sent on a mission to pose as an exotic dancer at a seedy nightclub - and only the now-deceased target had known she could dance like one. _No one_ knew she had once gone on a solo mission in enemy territory when she was a mere Chuunin of fifteen and had taken out twelve well armed enemy nin with one kunai and an injured knee. Still unknown was the saga of her homecoming from that mission, a journey worth its epic weight in gold, untold simply out of a pure dislike for self-aggrandizement.

In short, Mikoto dealt with her own drama in her own way and no one needed to make it any kind of business of theirs. For a woman whose life was to become ruled by the hand of the Uchiha, she demanded a sense of entitlement for herself, even if it meant going completely unrecognized. If her husband knew anything, he never let on and though she was married to him, Mikoto still had some trouble being able to tell when he was aware of something and if what he knew about her had any bearing on his mind at all. He was more concerned about keeping the structure of the clan around him intact and maintaining its foundation. He concentrated so much time and energy on their eldest son she doubted what she did came foremost in his thoughts. She was simply Uchiha Mikoto, wife and mother to his children, and granted she loved the man dearly, she felt her role was mattered little beyond these two very important things. And it may not surprise that she was more than enough content with such obscurity.

After eleven years of raising their sons and quietly managing the estate, Mikoto learned to live an unpretentious, relatively peaceful existence if a rather lonely one. She was the only female in their rigidly male-dominated home. More spectator than participant, really. Oftentimes Mikoto wished she had a daughter, she had _wanted_ a daughter after her silent wish for her first to be a son. When that happened, Fugaku seemed more "satisfied" with her than prior to the marriage. Her duty was done - she had not disappointed him - though if things _hadn't_ turned out satisfactorily it could hardly have been her fault anyway.

But… it still would have been nice to have a daughter.

From the first Mikoto could not connect with Itachi. He didn't like being held - even as a toddler - and disliked the most minute gesture of motherly affection. Just wiping his face clean of dirt or food was frequently met with expressions of annoyance or even worse, stoic tolerance. It hurt her heart when he did that. It wasn't normal for a child so young to distance himself from his own mother. Why would he never cry for her? Ask her questions? Smile? Even a simple nod of greeting, like Fugaku often did when he entered a room, would have sufficed. Was she doing something wrong? she worried. She was trying the best she could… maybe she just wasn't good enough. Obviously from the way Itachi was acting she seemed to come up short in the mothering department.

Of course, per her nature, Mikoto declined on sharing these concerns with anyone. The Uchiha were arguably the strongest of the noble clans in the village. Its matriarch complaining that her venerated son of privilege and pride wouldn't kiss his momma on the cheek simply would not be appropriate. But she had to make do because she was a Uchiha, dammit, and that's just how it had to be. Showing weakness was a big no-no.

That said, Mikoto resigned herself to the long haul. If she was going to raise a house full of sons who wanted to do nothing more than train and snatch bagged lunches out of her waiting hand on their way out the door, then so be it. She'd do it with a smile and a straight back and everything would be perfect. Nobody needed to know she was screaming inside.

Then Sasuke was born.

* * *

When Mikoto arrived home the estate was dark and silent. As expected - the Uchiha weren't into all-nighters and turned in a half-hour before most of Konoha did, except for the ones on police duty. For a people who trained as vigorously at keeping their title as Konoha's best and brightest, a good night's rest was of paramount importance.

Ever the energetic one, this was one of those rare times she found herself in agreement.

Her mission had been a last minute detail. A quick solo insertion into enemy territory was necessary to retrieve a hostage and a classified document. Mikoto was the fifth best of five ninja in the whole village capable of completing the mission within the allotted time - and the other four were currently away on missions of their own. She hadn't done an A-class mission in six months and said so, worried about her possible lax in skills. But the Hokage was adamant and since her husband was away on a mission, she had to make her own judgment call. Stay or go. Hit or miss. It was village duty, she reasoned. This was more than just about her needs and Konoha had need of her more now than home did. So she went and gladly.

It had been a hellish mission, another for the books for sure. She was just glad to be alive and to be home. Nothing else mattered, really.

Entering through the front door, Mikoto lit the lantern, so fatigued from lack of sleep she almost forgot to remove her shoes. Exhausted her usual façade dropped off completely. It was late and no one was awake. She backed up in two wearied steps over the threshold, kicked them off like a kid and shoved them aside out of the way with some distaste. She'd put them in the shoe rack in the morning - _who cares I'm too damn tired_. Moving through the moonlit family room, she stopped and pulled her hair free from its yank on top of her head. Taking her time, she shook out her hip length hair and ran her fingers through the black tresses, massaging her scalp with a little smile on her face. Oh yes. Pure heaven.

In passing she knelt beside the fireplace and tossed in some pieces of wood before reaching inside to arrange them more suitably. Then standing again, she felt along the top of the mantle, skimming and smoothing over the surface when her fingers did not encounter the expected object. She exhaled in faint disgust and put a hand on her hip. _No matches, oh how very nice. Might as well plop dead right here on the floor._

_I wonder…_

Mikoto looked around, eyes narrowed. Then suddenly she smiled wickedly. Stepping backward, she formed a few hand seals. Minutes later she had a roaring fire going and a mischievous twinkle in her eyes highlighted by the fire's glow. She even allowed herself a girlish giggle. It was vaguely rebellious to violate one of her own house rules just because she was feeling too lazy to pony up a book of matches.

Blithely continuing with her disarmament, she first shed her bloodied Jounin vest (none of the blood was hers thankfully) and in another uncharacteristic motion, she just dumped it unceremoniously on the rug beside the couch. Then she shed her thigh holster and weapons pouch, both landing with light metallic thuds beside the vest. Next were the scrolls and her cache of unmarked exploding tags. Finally unburdened, she went into the kitchen and stood over the sink. She pulled off her gloves, set them aside and proceeded to wash the dirt and grime from her hands. Smiling at the feeling of warm water flowing over her aching hands, she tilted back her head blissfully and just stood there for several moments.

"Kaasan?"

A bit startled, Mikoto opened her eyes and looked down, around and behind. Her youngest son was standing at the threshold of the kitchen, his nightclothes adorably rumpled. His hair was tousled and he was going at one dark eye with the palm of his small hand. He looked confused in a sleepy sort of way. The sight of her youngest melted Mikoto's heart and she felt the weariness of the mission ebb from her bit by bit. Itachi may be the apple of her eye but Sasuke owned her heart.

Still feeling somewhat out of sorts, she smiled quickly at him, shut off the water and hastily dried her hands on her pants. The brisk, unrefined action puzzled the little boy. He was used to seeing his mother wipe her hands on a towel as was proper and putter around in an apron and housedress in the mommy way. He didn't know what to make of this new sight of his mother, told more so in the slight tilt of his head. It hit Mikoto why then everything was feeling so out of place. He had never seen her in her Jounin uniform. It was possible he didn't even know she went out on missions, though the requests came in rarely these days since her marriage.

"Hello Sasuke. Did I wake you up?" she spoke sweetly, making an inviting gesture with her arm.

Not one to lie, he nodded, and then as if he'd been restraining himself, ran across the room and hugged her around the waist. Mikoto hooked him under the arms and set him on the counter so they could talk more freely.

"I thought Tousan said I wasn't allowed to sit up here," he pointed out. "And why is your stuff all over the place? I thought you said we had to clean up after ourselves."

Too good a memory for a six year old, she chuckled inwardly. She envisioned him years from now standing between her and the door, arms folded, sternly making her to do a self-check before each and every mission to make sure his empty-headed ruleless mother walked out with her head on her shoulders. He did that enough now perched on the edge of his parents' bed, little legs swinging, watching her clean the room (mostly when Itachi would, again, disappear leaving the poor thing adrift with no company save herself). She remembered during an especially dull day, he had once quizzed her about the contents of her jewelry box. Yes. Her son was special. He wasn't the daughter she prayed for but he was giving her everything else she was missing in this life and that was more than enough for her.

Taking his concern in stride, Mikoto winked at him and leaned on the counter next to him. "Mm, you're right, Tousan did say that. You're not allowed on the counter or the table. Yes, we must clean up after ourselves. But you know why we have that rule?" She leaned closer and whispered, "Because your mother is actually a pig."

Sasuke laughed.

She smirked. "This'll just be our little secret, okay?"

Sasuke didn't seem to know what to make of that but he smiled and nodded anyway, like a starved kitten getting its first pat on the head. The child was neglected entirely too much, she sighed. No matter how doggedly he shadowed Itachi's footsteps his brother gave him token attention here and there - which was a lot more than what his father gave him. It still wasn't as much as he needed though. She did her best to compensate where they lacked but she just could not do it all by herself. It wasn't _her_ attention or approval he strove for because he'd always had it.

She nudged him when he seemed to drift off in his own head. "What is it?" she prodded gently.

He looked up at his mother, the corner of his mouth twitched. "Niisan and Tousan went on missions today and then you were gone. Nobody told me _anything_." His small shoulders slumped and his dark eyes looked sad. He didn't move nor flinch when she brushed her hand through his unruly hair.

"I'm sorry," she said softly.

The boy shrugged. Somehow that made her feel worse. "Are you going to go on more missions now too?" he asked suddenly, appearing almost stricken.

"No," she was happy to assure. "This was a special situation. Don't worry, I'll still be here for you." He nodded but he still appeared blue. It hurt her to see him so melancholy. "Hey." She poked him. "No more frowns, mister, I want a smile right this minute."

Instead Sasuke made a scrunchy face at her. "Uh-uh."

She made it back and then in a surprise move she grabbed him and started tickling him. Completely helpless the boy squeaked and gasped and giggled, feebly trying to fight her off. When she did ease off, he went in for the kill and soon he wasn't the only one laughing in the moonlit darkness.

"So what happened at school today?" she asked him after they'd both caught their breaths and calmed down. "There was a test, I think…?" she prompted slyly.

Sasuke lit up. "Yes!"

"Oh I like _that_ answer. May I see it?"

Eagerly Sasuke hopped down off the counter and ran from the room. He returned a moment later with the paper. "I got one answer wrong," he admitted sheepishly, blushing. "But I still got the best grade in the whole class!" he added encouragingly, with just a dash of pomp.

Mikoto eyed the missed question and became very amused. _Ah, it's a bonus question_. Well, she thought reading over the query, whoever had graded the test thought more out of the box than most shinobi. Under most contexts his answer would have been correct, however, thinking the way she did and given what the question had been _really_ asking… He was still young, he would learn. Instructors liked throwing curveballs on tests, just to see how much of the material even these young ones were actually absorbing.

"I'm proud of you," she told him resolutely.

Sasuke bit his lip. "Will Tousan be proud? I got one wrong." Poor thing looked really worried. For a moment she felt a faint anger at her spouse. He wasn't Itachi, he was Sasuke! They were two separate people even if they were brothers. Unfortunately being a child in the Uchiha clan meant being elite early in life and following those whom led the way in like fashion.

"It was a bonus question. It didn't affect your grade," she explained almost vindictively. Feeling the need to elaborate, she turned on the kitchen light. "See?" she pointed at the score at the top of the paper. "You still got full credit for what you needed to get right in order to pass. The bonus question was just put there by your teacher because he wanted to see if you could answer it. He was basically testing _himself_. It didn't deduct anything from your score. Do you understand?"

Nodding, Sasuke took the test back, hovering between hope and doubt. "So it's okay?"

"Yes, honey, it's okay."

Satisfied by his mother's answer, he put the paper down on the table, forgotten. He had done well again… it was all he cared about.

A few minutes later they were in the family room, sitting in front of the fireplace, watching the flames lick and consume the logs.

"Kaasan. I have a question."

She glanced at him.

"Why do all the girls always bother me? I tell them to leave me alone but they won't. Well," he amended, "one does when I ask her to."

So he finally noticed. Oh heaven help them all, her little man was growing up. "What's her name?"

"I don't know. She has pink hair."

"Why don't you try asking her?"

"Why?"

Mikoto shrugged playfully, feigning innocence. "She respects your space. I think that might be worth knowing her name at least, don't you think?"

"But she's a _girl_."

Mikoto laughed. "So? I'm a girl."

Sasuke huffed haughtily. "You're Kaasan. You're different." He jutted out his lower lip and seemed very esteemed in his knowledge of such fact. "'Sides I'm a boy and boys _train_."

She elbowed him for his snit. "Girls train too, smarty-pants."

"Not like _me_."

Mikoto shook her head, the smile in her voice as she spoke with a touch of motherly pride. "No, not like you." Suddenly she feigned realizing something. "Shouldn't you be in bed now? You'll be too tired to train tomorrow if you stay up all night with me, you know."

"Not," yawn, "tired." The boy listed dozily for a moment, admitted defeat and pushed to his feet. He leaned over and pressed a kiss to his mother's cheek before padding off into the darkness back to his own room.

"'Night," Mikoto called after him.

"…night," she heard him murmur faintly in response.

Alone again, Mikoto stretched out across the rug comfortably. She'd just lie here for a moment before getting up to go to bed.

Instead she woke up hours later in the morning light to find her eleven-year-old son in his uniform standing over her, staring down at her blankly. She smiled brightly and said good morning. He just gave what appeared to be a shrug and wandered off into the recesses of the house toward his room. His presence was intercepted by a glad cry from his little brother.

Feeling someone else staring at her, Mikoto saw her husband standing at the threshold of the kitchen, his arms folded, obvious disapproval on his face. He sure did get grouchy when he didn't get his morning coffee.

"What did you say?"

She paled. Good god had she said that out loud? Going with it on a perky smile, she stood and padded by him into the kitchen, giving his cheek a token wifely peck. "How did your mission go?"

He took note of her appearance. "I'm more interested in talking about yours."

Mikoto blinked and looked back at him. "Whatever for?"

He just stared at her. The silence said enough.

She picked up the coffeepot and held it as an offer.

There was a long pause. Then…

"Black."

She smiled.

* * *

_**Four and a Half Years Later**_

There is a graveyard in Konoha, one of many such family plots in the peaceful village. There's nothing particularly special about it at first glance. Each grave marker resembled the one next to it. They stood in neat, straight rows and bore etches of the one whose resting-place lay beneath. Weathered and faintly stained by time, nonetheless they stood proudly and unspectacularly. On the surface it was just like any other of the many plots scattered about Konoha.

But it wasn't.

Not to him anyway.

This was the last time he would do this. After tonight, it was probable he would never set foot here again. The thought filled him with an old sadness - and a relief too. He wouldn't have to walk by here anymore. Wouldn't have to feel the need to go _in_, to _stand_ before them, to have to _read their names_. To have to ingrain them in his mind over and over again to remind himself of why he was living from day to day, why he shunned the things his heart cried out for and why he was doing what he was doing now. For this moment.

It did not surprise him that he would falter. But this was something he had to do. He didn't want to but he would hate himself forever if he didn't.

One by one he looked over the graves, letting his gaze settle over each name, recalling each face attached to those names. Finally his eyes fell upon the two largest markers standing tall among the sea of stones. The names on these graves meant more to him than any of the others. So it was these he did approach, slowly. The night didn't show what he held in his hand until the moonlight fell over it.

A single red rose.

Kneeling before one of the pair he placed it on the ground gently. Reaching up he touched each grave, running his fingers over the names. For the one bearing the rose his fingers paused over the name, dragged a little more slowly. His head bowed a bit more to hide the sheen in his eyes. He licked his lips. Then he began to speak, quietly, his voice never rising above a hushed whisper.

"I've always been able to tell you anything," he took a deep breath, "and you've always listened to what I had to say. Now isn't so different but…" he trailed off for a moment. He closed his eyes. "I'm not good at talking so I'll just say what I came here to say. I wasn't strong enough to protect you. I didn't tell you when I ran out the door that morning and you called after me like you always did that you loved me… for every time I never answered I wished I had that day…" His voice wavered and shook as he faltered. He opened his eyes, hardened and steady now. "…Every day."

His fingers curled into a fist and he softly punched the earth beside the rose.

"I go to make sure you never need to wait for my answer… because you'll have it."

Standing, he flicked the top of the marker with his fingers in farewell before slipping his thumbs under his travel bag and disappearing into the night.


End file.
